PDQ&E Sweet and Sour Chicken

I received an email newsletter from Allrecipes.com which featured a this sweet and sour sauce.  The ingredients are simple and ones we typically have on hand, so combined with the fact that we enjoy sweet and sour when we eat out, this recipe immediately caught my eye.

Yum, this was good!   The sauce is piquant, almost too sharp with the sweet and sour flavor (it makes me sneeze, smiles), but I know it's one that we'll be using often.

The recipe is for the sauce only, so how you use it, is up to you.  We often have bits of fresh vegetable left over, and, so this was an delicious way to use them up, plus give them a new interest; what you add and how much is left up to you.

For the sweet and sour chicken, I used two breasts, cut into generous bite-sized pieces, breaded.  Using a pan large enough that will eventually  hold the vegetables, chicken, and sauce, pan fry the chicken over medium heat until golden. Remove chicken from pan and set  chicken aside.

Wipe out the pan, place over heat, and add a little bit of oil.  Add your vegetables and cook until onions are translucent and peppers are crisp-tender.  I had half a green pepper,  half a red pepper, and half an onion. Carrots or celery cut on the diagonal might have been a nice addition, too.  I had some pineapple chunks, added those, too.

Add the chicken back to the vegetables, pour the prepared sauce over, and let it come to a gentle simmer for 3 or 4 minutes.  Serve hot.

Sweet and Sour Sauce

3/4 cup white sugar

1/3 cup white vinegar

2/3 cup water

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 tablespoon ketchup

2 tablespoons cornstarch, mixed with 2 tablespoons water

Put all the ingredients in a medium sized saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring continuously, until the mixture has thickened. If the sauce seems a little too thick, add more water. 

Makes about 2 cups of sauce.

This would be a terrific sauce for sweet and sour meatballs.

Sourdough Waffles & Blueberry Sauce

Until these so-light, they-almost-float-off-your-plate sourdough waffles, I have never had good luck with sourdough anything. The minute I saw these on Coleen's Recipes blog though, I just I just had to try again. I had been craving waffles for breakfast, so I took this as an omen.

Excuse me if I speak while my mouth is full, but I must say, "Oh my!" Light, airy, crunchy, slightly tangy, good! Ole Sweetie-Pi, who never eats eats a whole waffle, ate an entire one in record time and declared that we must have this again.

Grins. My waffles are a bit overdone, (Coleen's are far more gorgeous!), but I was hoping to capture the crispy goodness of these. Check our her pictures for a better idea.

Now I just have one addendum to Coleen's excellent instructions. What I didn't consider is that the batter would rise like the sun at dawn. It started to spill out of my pitcher and onto the counter. Fortunately, I was standing in the kitchen when it was just undulating over the sides and I was able to throw the batter into a much larger bowl. The batter does stop rising after a bit, but plan on having a container maybe three to four sizes larger than your starter.

I had some frozen blueberries in the freezer and decided to make wonderful, full of rich blueberry flavor sauce. I declare, this tasted blueberrier than fresh blueberries!

Blueberry Sauce

In a small saucepan, combine 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon cornstarch, a good pinch of ground nutmeg and a dash of salt. (That equates to about an 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg and even less than that for the salt.)

Stir in 1/2 cup of boiling water; cook and stir until bubbly, about two minutes or so. The mixture will be thick and clear.

Add 1 cup of blueberries and return to boiling. Cook until the blueberries begin to burst and remove from heat. Stir in 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Pour into a serving dish and serve.

This is so good warm and so much better than any store-bought blueberry sauce I've ever had. Makes 1 1/2 cups.

Strawberry Sauce

It was definitely time to use up all those strawberries that had jumped into my grocery cart earlier this week, and what better way than to make a simple and delicious strawberry topping

The first time I saw this recipe, I discounted it, and found a recipe that required more ingredients and more effort. That recipe did not live up to its imagined potential.

Ordinarily, I make the simplest strawberry topping, (a little sugar and allow the berries to macerate) but I was looking for something a little more. This simple recipe, with five ingredients (or is it four because we don't count salt as an ingredient?) is just what I was looking for.

Picture thick, sweet, rich with bright strawberry flavor, slowly cascading down ice cream or waffles or pound cake....this is it!

I took pictures of this last evening but they came out too dark. So, this afternoon on my lunch break, I made myself another bowl of ice cream with this topping and found a patch of light.

I did this only for you because I want you to have the very best. (grins)